Can indoor teak furniture be used outside? Moving a table out

A beautiful teak dining table you’d really rather have on the patio, or an old indoor table getting a second life as a garden table: it can be done, but an indoor table isn’t a garden table. This page explains what happens to indoor furniture outside, what to check beforehand and how to look after it afterwards. For how to treat a table in general, read teak table care.

The short answer

The Dutch furniture maker Souren sums it up well: indoor teak tables and chairs generally still last a good number of years outside, but expect a somewhat shorter lifespan and more maintenance (Souren Meubels, Dutch). It depends on what you expect: does the table need to last another twenty years, or is five years fine too? Can it crack a little? Will it stand under a canopy or out in full sun and rain?

Cabinets and sideboards: better not. Drawers and doors swell when they get damp and then no longer open and close properly. Souren advises against them outdoors; under a canopy at most, if the floor there doesn’t flood in a heavy shower (Souren Meubels, Dutch).

Why an indoor table is different

The difference isn’t in the teak, but in the construction.

• Wide, glued boards. According to Souren, an indoor table top consists of several boards glued together, without gaps between them. Rain makes them swell, sun and heat make them shrink, and that can make the top crack (Souren Meubels, Dutch).
• No drainage for water. Without gaps, rainwater can’t run off (Souren Meubels, Dutch).
• Wood moves more outdoors. Gloster writes that wood expands and contracts with temperature and humidity, that this is more extreme outdoors than indoors, and that outdoor furniture therefore traditionally has slats rather than wide boards (Gloster).

For that reason, according to Souren, a garden table with gaps and slats needs less maintenance than an indoor table standing outside (Souren Meubels, Dutch).

Checklist before you put it outside

1. What finish does it have?

This is the most important question.

• Lacquered or varnished? Outdoor furniture makers advise against that outdoors. Gloster: paint and varnish don’t adhere properly to teak (Gloster). Tribù: varnish may cause wood rot, blisters or peeling (Tribù instructions). The Dutch company Traditional Teak explains that water eventually gets through a coating, which then has to be sanded off thoroughly (Traditional Teak, Dutch). You remove a lacquer layer by sanding the whole top; spot repairs don’t work with lacquer (Polder Teak, Dutch).
• Oiled or waxed? That’s also a point to watch outdoors: Gloster writes that oil on the surface of outdoor teak can go mouldy and turn the wood black (Gloster). Oil also soaks into the wood and is hard to remove completely (Verftechnieken, Dutch).
• Untreated? Then you’re ready soonest. The wood will go grey, though, like all teak outdoors (Souren Meubels, Dutch).

2. Heartwood, sapwood or reclaimed?

The durability teak is known for applies to the heartwood; Centrum Hout puts it in class 1 to 3, depending on where it grew (Centrum Hout, Dutch). According to the Queensland Government, the lighter, pale yellow sapwood is susceptible to powderpost beetle attack (Business Queensland). If you see a lot of light, yellowish strips, it’s a less good candidate for outdoors.

A lot of indoor furniture is made of reclaimed teak. Troedoor, a Dutch company that works with reclaimed teak itself, describes knots, unevenness and inset repair pieces as normal for that material (Troedoor, Dutch). That says nothing bad about the quality in itself, but it does mean you should look at the condition of the top carefully beforehand.

3. Where will it stand?

• Under a canopy, the table suffers much less from the weather, according to Souren (Souren Meubels, Dutch). Tribù also writes that teak indoors or on a veranda won’t turn grey (Tribù instructions).
• Legs out of the water. Souren advises raising the legs so they don’t stand in the rain (Souren Meubels, Dutch).
• Indoors or covered in winter. According to Souren, it makes a big difference if you put the table in the garage for a while each year or cover it with a tarpaulin (Souren Meubels, Dutch). Opinions on covers differ, though; the Dutch retailer Teak.nl advises against covers for teak because of mould (Teak.nl, Dutch). If you do use one, choose a breathable cover.

Moving it and acclimatising

Gloster explicitly warns about one direction: don’t move teak straight from the garden into a heated room, because the big difference in temperature and humidity can make the wood move too much and crack (Gloster). For the opposite direction, from indoors to outdoors, we found no manufacturer’s advice. What is established: central heating dries wood out indoors (Peltenburg, Dutch), and wood moves more outdoors than indoors (Gloster). So an indoor table makes quite a leap when it moves.

And if you want to bring the table back in for winter, use a dry shed or garage as an intermediate step (Gloster).

Maintenance once it’s outside

After that, treat the table like an ordinary garden table: choose between letting it go grey and a protector or sealer, and clean it thoroughly a few times a year. How to do that step by step is in outdoor teak care.

Advice on the product differs. Souren mentions oiling yearly to slow down greying (Souren Meubels, Dutch); Gloster and Tribù advise against teak oil outdoors (Gloster, Tribù instructions). The trade-off is in teak oil vs sealer.

If it does crack

According to Souren, cracks in an indoor table that has stood outside are no disaster at all: the construction and wood stay sound, only the look changes. After a few years you can refurbish it in a day (Souren Meubels, Dutch):

1. Glue larger loose pieces and clamp them.
2. Fill small cracks with wood filler.
3. Sand everything well, if necessary the whole top with a power sander.

For small hairline cracks, the Dutch company Hamilton Bay mentions waterproof wood glue, after which they’re barely visible (Hamilton Bay, Dutch).

Or a proper garden table after all?

If you want a table that stands outside for years without this hassle, a garden table with slats or gaps is the more logical choice. If you’d rather keep your indoor table indoors and are looking for new indoor furniture, read our buying guide to indoor teak furniture.